Because prior studies of American women’s travel writing have focused  exclusively on middle-class and wealthy travelers, it has been  difficult to assess the genre and its participants in a holistic  fashion. One of the very few surviving working-class travel diaries,  Lorenza Stevens Berbineau’s account provides readers with a unique  perspective of a domestic servant in the wealthy Lowell family in  Boston. Staying in luxurious hotels and caring for her young charge  Eddie during her six-month grand tour, Berbineau wrote detailed and  insightful entries about the people and places she saw. Contributing to the traditions of women’s, diary, and travel  literature from the perspective of a domestic servant, Berbineau's  narrative reveals an arresting and intimate outlook on both her own life  and the activities, places, and people she encounters. For example, she  carefully records Europeans’ religious practices, working people and  their behavior, and each region’s aesthetic qualities. Clearly writing  in haste and with a pleasing freedom from the constraints of  orthographic and stylistic convention, Berbineau offers a distinctive  voice and a discerning perspective. Alert to nuances of social class,  her narrative is as appealing and informative to today's readers as it  no doubt was to her fellow domestics in the Lowell household. Unobtrusively edited to retain as much as possible the individuality and texture of the author’s original manuscript, From Beacon Hill to the Crystal Palace  offers readers brief framing summaries, informative endnotes, and a  valuable introduction that analyzes Berbineau’s narrative in relation to  gender and class issues and compares it to the published travel writing  of her famous contemporary, Harriet Beecher Stowe.

From Beacon Hill to the Crystal Palace: The 1851 Travel Diary of a Working-Class Woman PDF

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